A Friend of the Family (16 page)

‘Yes, but, why does that make you tired?’ He was on the wide open road to self-destruction now but he was past caring.

‘I don’t know, Sean. I’ve got no idea. I’ve never been pregnant before. It’s all a bloody mystery to me.’

He took a deep breath, rubbed his hand across his chin and prepared to launch the Exocet missile of a question he’d been wanting to ask her all week. ‘Are you sure this tiredness isn’t all in your head – you know, psychosomatic?’

Millie opened her mouth and started gawping at him like a pike. ‘Sean,’ she said, her voice chillingly steely, ‘
what
the fuck is your problem?’

‘My problem,’ said Sean, ‘is that I want to go to Paradise Paul’s on a Friday night with my girlfriend, have a few drinks, have a laugh and then come home and I can’t because of this so-called tiredness that seems to have taken over your life.’

‘Tell you what, Sean,’ said Millie, pushing back her
chair and dropping her napkin on to the table-top, ‘why don’t
you
go to Paul’s, eh? You go on your own and have a good time. But promise me one thing: don’t bother coming home until you’ve grown up – you
child’

And then she pulled her jacket off the back of the chair, threw a £20 note at him and stalked from the restaurant.

Sean sat there for a while after she’d gone, assessing his emotions.

Relieved: a little bit, yes. He’d been wanting to question Millie’s ‘tiredness’all week, convinced it was all part of some female ploy to ‘seem’ pregnant and be made a fuss of.

Remorseful: a bit. He’d spoilt the evening and let Millie go home on her own. He’d been insensitive and selfish. But this was his life, too. He was allowed to question things, wasn’t he? He didn’t have to accept every change this pregnancy foisted upon his life.
He
still counted, even if the being growing inside his girlfriend had other ideas.

Confused: very much so. All his natural instincts told him that he should be changing, becoming a more selfless person. But he had this bloody great psychotic parrot sitting on his shoulder shouting, ‘Self-preservation! Self-preservation!’ at him morning, noon and night. He was very fond of his life and he was buggered if he was going to let something over which he had no control mess it all up for him.

Frustrated: extremely. Because ultimately there was
nothing he could do to stop this scary, uncontrollable process.

Sad: very. It had only been a week since Millie’s curveball and already their relationship had changed beyond all recognition. If someone had told him a week ago that he and Millie would have a huge row in their favourite Italian restaurant which culminated in Millie storming off, and him letting her, he’d have laughed in their face. No way, he’d have said, not me and Millie. We get on so well. We never argue. And Friday’s our favourite night…

Sean felt a seismic emotional shock run through his body at the thought of what they’d have been doing this time last week and clenched his jaw hard to hold back the tears that had suddenly appeared from nowhere.

He cleared his throat, picked up the bill and Millie’s £20 note and thought about finding a newsagent, picking up a big bag of Haribos and some trashy magazines, walking back to Millie’s, plying her with foot massages and scalp rubs, putting tonight behind them and making a fresh start.

But then the big, ugly parrot started squawking again – ‘Self-preservation, Sean, self-preservation – don’t let it win!’And five minutes later he found himself in the back of a black cab and on his way to Brewer Street.

Eating Cheese in the Moonlight

Tony thought it was part of his dream at first. He’d been having a particularly good one about Millie – no horses this time, just him and Millie lying together in a hammock, Millie tearing up bits of food for him and hand-feeding them to him while she massaged his groin with… her third hand? Well, with something, anyway. A large lizard had slunk up and grinned at them. It had a gold tooth and started making a strange noise, like a telephone ringing. They’d laughed at first, at this lizard and its strange phone-ringing noises, until it had become annoying. And then he’d reached out to shut the lizard’s mouth and the lizard had kept dodging him, ducking and diving and grinning at him. And then Tony woke up and realized that his phone was ringing.

He looked at his radio alarm: 3.58a.m.

Jesus.

He pulled the receiver towards him. ‘Hello.’

‘Doby,’ came a strangulated voice, ‘it’s Mewell.’

‘I’m sorry,’ he said, ‘I think you’ve got the wrong number.’

‘No! No – it’s me, Millie.’

‘Millie!’ he sat bolt upright and ran a hand through his hair. ‘Are you OK? Is everything all right?’

Yes. No. I… I…’ she sniffed. ‘Are you alone?’

Tony checked the pillow next to his, just to be sure. ‘Yes. Alone. Totally. What’s the matter?’

‘I’m really sorry to wake you, Tony. I really am. I know it’s late, but I’m in such a state and didn’t know who else to talk to. I’ll go if you want me to…’

‘Nonono. Don’t. Don’t go. Talk to me. Tell me what’s wrong.’

‘I’m so sorry, Tony. I’ve just got myself so wound up. Too wound up to sleep. And I can’t take a pill because of the baby. And…
shit.
I’m such a fucking mess.’

‘What happened, Millie? What’s the matter?’

‘Me and Sean had a row. I stormed off and now he’s buggered off somewhere and still isn’t home.’

‘A row? What about?’

‘God – I don’t know where to start. He’s just… he’s just… he’s such a
child,
Tony.’

‘Well, yes,’ said Tony. ‘Sean can be a bit childish.’

‘It’s this being-pregnant thing. He says he’s happy about it but he just seems to be annoyed with me. Like, you know – You got yourself into this mess, don’t expect me to make it any easier for you. You know, like I went out in the cold without a cardigan on and now I’ve got a cold and I’ve got no one to blame but myself.’

Tony tutted and shook his head. ‘Christ,’ he said, ‘what a dick. I can’t believe he’s behaving like this. Do you want me to say something to him for you? Hmm? Have a word with him?’

‘No! Absolutely not. He’s my problem and I’ll deal with it, Tony. But the thing is, you see, Sean came to
me from nowhere, out of the blue – do you see? I’ve got no context to put him in. I don’t really know anything about him. I mean, he’s told me that he’s never really had a serious relationship before, but then, neither have I, not really, and that doesn’t mean that I’m incapable of sustaining one. And I just wondered, you know, maybe you could tell me things about him, things, I don’t know, like, what were his ex-girlfriends like and why did the relationships end and what sort of things he’s ever said about babies. All that sort of thing. But only if it doesn’t make you feel horribly disloyal.’

‘Disloyal?’ said Tony. ‘No. Not at all. I’ll tell you anything you need to know.’

And he did. He told her about Sean’s middle-child complex and how he always needed to be the centre of attention and panicked if he didn’t think he was getting enough of anything, be it fish fingers or maternal love. He told her all about the blondes and the tears and the heartbreak. He told her how surprised the whole family were that Sean had found someone he loved enough to make a commitment to because it had looked like he might end up alone. He also told her how Sean had a touch of the misogynist about him, was impatient, selfish and short-sighted. How he’d never really developed emotionally and possibly wasn’t equipped to deal with the complexities of a proper grown-up relationship.

‘He’s spoilt,’ he said, finally, ‘that’s the problem with Sean. He’s never had to work at anything. Got given a council flat. Had the girls lining up for him. And of course Mum and Dad have let him get away with murder for
years, paid his bills, done his washing, taken him on holidays, never questioned what the hell he was doing with his life. And now that he’s written this book and has got all this money and all this success, well, you know…’

Millie sniffed on the other end of the line. ‘So you’re saying that my fiancé is an emotional cripple?’

‘No. Not a cripple. But he has a slight emotional
limp,
let’s put it that way.’

‘But babies, Tony, has he ever said anything to you about
babies
?’

Tony gave the question some serious thought. ‘No,’ he said eventually, ‘I’ve never heard him say anything about babies, good or bad.’

‘Oh,’ said Millie, sounding slightly disappointed. ‘But why would he ask me to marry him if he doesn’t want babies? I mean, isn’t that the whole point of getting married?’

‘Well,’ said Tony, ‘I’d have thought so.’

‘Oh God, Tony. I just – I don’t understand him. I don’t know what’s going through his head.’

‘Look,’ said Tony, ‘Sean’s a complex guy. I don’t think
anyone
really understands him. But you mustn’t let him get away with it, OK? Don’t let him think he can behave this way. He’s a spoilt brat and he needs some discipline. He needs to realize that he’s a grown man now, that he has responsibilities.’

‘Oh, I’ve got no intention of letting him get away with anything, I can assure you. It’s not in my nature.’

‘Good on you.’

‘And I’ll tell you one thing for sure, whatever happens, I’m not letting him get in my bed tonight. No way.’

‘Absolutely right,’ said Tony, ‘don’t you let him anywhere near you.’

There was a long pause before Millie said anything, and Tony listened to the sound of her snotty breathing down the phone and felt unbelievably close to her. There was something incredibly intimate about talking to someone on the phone in the middle of the night, in the dark, all naked and wrapped up in goosedown and cotton, like a baby.

‘Anyway, Tony. That was all. I just needed a bit of
context.
You can get back to sleep now.’

‘No – no. Honestly. I’m fine. I’m wide awake now.’

‘God – I’m sorry. I really didn’t mean to ruin your night’s sleep…’

‘Really, Millie, no need to be. I don’t sleep all that well. I’d probably have woken up in ten minutes anyway. I usually do. It’s nice to have someone to talk to for a change. Actually,’ he said, a thought suddenly occurring to him, ‘hold on just one second. Don’t go away. I’m just getting the other phone.’ He put the phone down, pulled on his dressing-gown and padded across soft cream carpet towards his living room, where he retrieved the walkabout.

‘Hi,’ he said.

‘Hi. What were we talking about?’

‘Sean.’

‘Oh yes. Sean. Don’t want to talk about Sean any more. Bored of talking about Sean. He’s a big, fat tosser and that’s that.’

‘So – what shall we talk about?’

‘Hmm…’ said Millie, in a kitteny, slinky kind of way
that made Tony imagine her naked on silk sheets with her hair all mussed up. ‘Baby names?’

‘Eh?’

‘I like Nat for a boy. Or maybe Theo. And if it’s a girl, I like Mathilda. I like Lois, too, but Lois London sounds kind of weird, doesn’t it?’

‘I suppose so.’

‘What names do you like?’

‘God,’ he ran a hand over his hair, ‘I’ve never really thought about it. David?’

‘David?! You can’t call a baby David. He’ll end up being called Dave and having spots and greasy hair. What about girls’ names?’

‘Er… I don’t know. Amanda?’

‘Amanda! I used to
love
the name Amanda when I was little.
Amanda
…’ she dragged out the syllables, ‘Amanda London. Hmm, you know. I quite like it. It’s got a sort of post-modern charm, hasn’t it?’

‘Hmm,’ said Tony, wishing that they were talking about something about which he had an opinion of some sort. He wandered into the kitchen while Millie kept talking baby names, and absent-mindedly opened the fridge. A large hunk of vintage Cheddar winked at him and he pulled it out, got a knife out of a drawer and started shaving slivers off it, slipping them into his mouth and letting them melt on his tongue. He brought the hunk of cheese and a glass of orange juice into the living room and lay down on his sofa while they chatted. Through the glass set into the ceiling above him, he could see the sky starting to turn from black to an amber-tinged
navy as the sun began its slow ascent somewhere over the horizon. The moon was big and fat overhead and Millie’s voice was all husky honey in his ear as she recited baby names to him from a book: Albert, Amber, Anastasia, Archie, Astrid… Tony responded with ‘hmm’s, and ‘no’s, and ‘quite nice’s and stared at the moon while Millie chanted – Bathsheba, Bella, Boris, Bruce and Bryony. Baby names had never sounded so sexy.

‘Are you eating something?’ said Millie, suddenly.

‘Nu-uh,’ said Tony, trying to dislodge a wedge of pasty cheese from his tongue, ‘just drinking some orange juice.’

‘God – do you
do
that?’

‘Do what?’

‘Get stuff out of the fridge in the middle of the night?’

‘Sometimes.’

‘Ha. I always thought people only did that in American films. So – what else are you doing?’

‘Nothing. Just lying here on my sofa. Drinking juice. Talking to you.’

‘What does your house look like?’

‘My house?’

‘Uh-huh. Describe it to me.’

‘Well. It’s a duplex apartment, actually. In a gated mews development. It’s a Barratt one, but really nice, you know. Architect-designed and everything…’

‘Architect designed, eh? As opposed to a house that was designed by a dinner lady?’

‘Ha ha ha.’

‘Tell me about your sofa.’

‘What?!’

‘Look – I’m an interior designer. I need to know someone’s sofa to really know
them
.’

‘Well, what do you want to know?’

‘Colour. Fabric. Dimensions. Upholstery.’

‘Well. It’s a kind of lemony cream. And it’s a sort of
ridged
cottony fabric. It’s a big three-seater with a low back and lots of cushions.’

‘From?’

‘Ikea.’

‘
Ikea?
’

‘Is that bad?’

‘It’s terrible, Tony, absolutely appalling. God – you live in a Barratt home and you have an Ikea sofa. You’re not much like your parents, are you?’